Because Cheney is a man of conviction, has a record on which he can be judged, and whatever the result, there could be no ambiguity about the will of the people. The best way to settle arguments is by having what we used to call full and frank exchanges about the issues, and then voting. A contest between Dick Cheney and Barack Obama would offer us a bracing referendum on competing visions. One of the problems with governance since the election of Bill Clinton has been the resolute refusal of the opposition party (the GOP from 1993 to 2001, the Democrats from 2001 to 2009, and now the GOP again in the Obama years) to concede that the president, by virtue of his victory, has a mandate to take the country in a given direction. A Cheney victory would mean that America preferred a vigorous unilateralism to President Obama’s unapologetic multilateralism, and vice versa.

Meacham says e-mails Liz Cheney received after an interview she gave asked, “Where do I sign up?” If I judged myself by my own received emails, I’d jump off the nearest ledge.

Some of Meacham’s other arguments:

…the former vice president would make the case for the harder-line elements of the Bush world view.

Just what we need: more constitutional challenges to warrantless searches, declarations by a chief executive of energy combatants, a Patriot Act 3, and more countries distrusting us.

…it seems much more likely that Cheney would pull Obama to the right than that Obama would pull Cheney to the left.

The presidency already pulled Obama to the right.

A campaign would also give us an occasion that history denied us in 2008: an opportunity to adjudicate the George W. Bush years in a direct way.

History did not deny us that assessment. We did adjudicate. The result was Barack Obama.